Doughnuts!
Most (perhaps all) experts would advise aspiring writers to “just say no” to exclamation points. They are abused and overused. They make our writing appear amateur. There is seldom a good enough reason to use an exclamation point.
And yet . . . I choose to believe that the story I am writing today deserves an exclamation point. The title of this post may have unleashed sugary visions in your mind, but I’ll tell you here at the beginning that this isn’t really a story about sugar. It’s about bread. And it is exclamation-point worthy.
On Saturday, my almost-five-year-old boy tasted his first doughnut. One taste and his eyes were shining. Like this:
(photo by yours truly)
This boy is allergic to a handful of the most basic ingredients of an American childhood (dairy, wheat, eggs, and peanuts). Thanks to a recent discovery (the phenomenal vegan, gluten-free bakery cookbook Babycakes Covers the Classics) my son tasted a doughnut for the very first time.
Even better, we all tasted them. We all loved them. In fact, the leftovers are calling to me from the freezer drawer right now.
It’s a far cry from our usual breakfast routine. My husband makes dairy-free, wheat-free pancakes and waffles, but they will always taste just a little funny to anyone accustomed to bleached, all-purpose wheat flour. Most days, the boy enjoys his breakfast, while the father begins making something else for everyone else.
Strictly speaking, our family never breaks bread together. We break bread alongside one another. The good loaf for the four of us, the not-quite-right imposter for our oldest son, the middle child.
In our family, we often say ruefully that if we only ate like this boy we would all be so healthy. Some meals, this is true, but, deep down, I have always felt as if my boy’s diet has no heart. Something essential seems missing. I love the smell of yeasty bread baking, and I definitely prefer homemade pizza crust. The bread-like lumps that sit on the shelves at Whole Foods, heavy with ingredients like tapioca and bamboo (I am not kidding), strike me cold.
My son rarely complains. Some of those lumps, he actually likes. Only occasionally, does he seem to mind. “Isn’t there any bread for me?” he might ask as his sister dunks a baguette in her soup, and I try to pacify him with a few rice crackers.
In my head, I know that my son doesn’t need bread. His body seems to be growing pretty well without it. In my heart, I’m not so sure. What I want to give him, what I long to give him, is the thing I gave him on Saturday. Bread made with my own hands to nourish him: body and soul. Factory-made bamboo substitutes need not apply. They cannot do the job.
I am about to make a leap here (from nutrition to religion), but, honestly, I don’t believe it’s that much of a leap. I love symbols and metaphors, but this is more real than those. Our pastor reminded us this weekend that the Hebrew word for bread is also used to speak of God’s presence. And that is what I hunger for. That is what I want to give my son.
Depending on our culture, we might discover it in a corn tortilla or a yeasty baguette, but I know it’s available for all of us, whether we are breaking bread at home or in a church. It’s Life. Body, heart, mind, and soul. All of it.
Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). Maybe when he spoke these words they were only a metaphor. However, when Jesus walked all the way through death and out into life, his words became much more than that. And if we’re wondering what to do, how exactly to access this life without hunger and thirst, the answer, I think, is so much less complicated and exclusionary than we often make it: Eat! And after, maybe a simple thank-you.
“He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate – bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart.”
(Psalm 104:15)
Prayers
Trees are dying, fires are burning, and I’ve been praying for rain. On Monday, it rained. A good, soaking rain. I went to bed and imagined the smoke being scrubbed from the air.
On Tuesday, we woke up to find that the smoke was much, much worse. “What happened,” we wondered. Hadn’t the rain done its job? Throughout the day, the smoke seemed to grow denser, heavier, and by the late afternoon our car was coated in a fine dusting of metallic ash.
It turns out that a neighbor of ours is something of an amateur meteorologist. While we traded complaints about sore throats and burning eyes, he explained that the rain had been part of a low-pressure system. Where air pressure is low, new air rushes in. The rain that seemed such a good thing was like an invitation to the fires. The rain stopped, and the smoke poured in.
Lately, I’ve been thinking I may need to be more specific in my prayers. I prayed for rain, but I didn’t intend to pray for smoke. In another example, I’ve lately been praying that we could live nearer our families. My sister, a military wife, then shared that they would be moving to northwestern Florida, only (only!) a six-hour drive away. They had been asked to prioritize three choices for their move, and Florida wasn’t one of those choices. I realized that I’d imagined God moving us out of Florida in order to be near family, but, instead, God moved my sister and her family here. I’m grateful, but it isn’t really what I’d hoped for.
My prayer for rain, and the unforeseen consequences of that rain, remind me how limited my vision is. Prayer is such a mystery. I’m glad that we are able to participate in God’s work in the world through prayer. I could tell beautiful stories of answered prayers in my life and the lives of my family and friends. But, I’m also glad to know that the God who created the universe isn’t some sort of mechanical robot: I push his buttons with prayer and wait for the expected result. He’s so much more alive than that. So much more dangerous. So much more loving. To use C. S. Lewis’s word, he isn’t a “tame” God.
And yet . . . sometimes my hopes, dreams, and desires feel like fragile little birds. They don’t seem able to withstand the force of some fierce, lion-God stomping around on them. Considering these dreams, I feel like both the mother and the baby bird. I am tender and nurturing toward these parts of myself. I am also very, very vulnerable. Can the God who holds the Big Picture be trusted with hopes that are so small and easily crushed?
“Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young – a place near your altar, O Lord Almighty, my King and my God.”
(Psalm 84:3)
Art
(photo by yours truly)
I waited and prayed for children for a long time. I first knew that God had heard my prayer when, crying out to Him for an answer, any answer, I saw a brilliant orange moon rising over Lake Michigan. One year later, we brought our daughter home from the hospital and sat by her Moses basket in the light of another full moon rising over the lake.
For nine months, I’ve written a hefty monthly check to a local dance studio for this daughter’s ballet class. Each month, I worried that the money was being wasted. Wouldn’t it be better to sponsor another Compassion child? Or, put the money away in a college fund?
My daughter enjoys the class, but I have no dreams of grandeur for her involving a career as a dancer. I’m afraid the gene pool in our house quashed that dream before she was even born. And I don’t have to take it that far. I remember clearly the moment in my own childhood ballet class when I realized that my body wasn’t made to do the things being asked of it. I was eight. I quit and never looked back. Should I really be devoting so much of our monthly budget for a ballerina-fairytale-dream that will probably end in a year or two?
Last night, sitting in a beautiful old theater as class after class danced for us I saw how wrong I have been. I filter my budget (and my world) through concepts like productivity, utility, and remuneration. Words like beauty and art don’t enter those equations.
The annual dance recital was art. The whole of it and the little moments: from the graduating dancers performing their elegant senior solos to the three-year-olds dressed like pink bumblebees standing on stage looking dazed.
I can’t dance to save my life, but, watching those dancers, I knew that this is what we were made for. To dance. To sing. To perform and write and paint and rhyme and . . . create beauty.
Still, there are doubts. In a world in which so many suffer while the rest look away, how can I justify any time or money or energy that is not spent on aid, in protest, or at work? These things matter. A lot. In fact, I’ve just decided that we do need to sponsor another Compassion child. However, I’ll shift the money from our Christmas fund instead.
Driving home from the downtown theater, we followed a full moon tinted deep orange by the still-burning wildfires, and I remembered the moons that announced the gift of this girl, my girl. The moon stayed centered in our windshield, and I could have sworn we were being led through the desert by a pillar of fire, the only sound in our car the subtle tapping of silvery ash against the window. My daughter’s dance is gone. Blown away with the ash on a Florida wind. Like life itself, it is over and gone before I’ve fully registered its beauty. But it was good and worth far more than dollars can count.
“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
(James 4: 14)